The Quest of the Golden Girl: A Romance

rt apart, an art like any other,-needing first the natural gift, then the long patient training, and finally the courageous practice. Alas for me, I possessed neither gift, training, no

ng to win the bar-maid heart divine. The man to win her is he who calls loudly for his drink, without a "Please" or a "Thank you," throws his hat at the back of his head, gul

e-talked of racing and football, but I might as well have talked of Herbert Spencer. I suppose I didn't talk about them in the right way. I'm sure it must be my fault somewhere, for certainly they seem easy enough to please, poor thin

e going to be, I think I must have declined the adventure altogether,-for, robed in lustrous ivory-white linen were those figures of undress marble, the wealth of their glorious bodies pres

Hercules; for these windows through a whole youth Burne Jones had worshipped painted glass at Oxford, and to breathe romance into these f

ith her own perfection, from majestic labours in the Sistine Chapel of the Stars,-yea, she must put aside her gold-leaf and purples

es, from which we might gaze upon the sea without and Aphrodite within, my eyes were able to fly like bees from one fair face to another. Finally, they settled upon a Circe less be

anion, I hastened across to her, to be greeted instantly in a manner so exclusively intimate that the

e a nice girl! Whateve

ard that there was a sudden vacancy for a golden-haired beauty in this place, I couldn't resist applying, and to my surprise

had two half-days free in the week, an

it was impossible to monopolise her, and the rest of my time there

in a fluttering voice gasped, "Look yonder!" I looked. A rather slight dark-haired young man was entering the bar, with a very sty

op of brandy." But woman will never take the most obvious restorative, and Rosalind pres

" I said,-reserving for myself the sati

said Rosalind; adding under her br

him; nor, looking at his companion, could I wonder. She was a sprightly young woman, very smart and merry and decorously voluptuous, and of that fascinating prettiness

air, at all events," she sa

not unlike," I a

k so," said Rosalin

she hasn't your hands,"-I knew that women ca

retorted; "you cannot s

ds?" I persisted. "They would shine

ou manage to sit somewhere near them and hear what they are saying? Of co

ld like

ute the threatened couple arose, and went out arm in arm,

Rosalind's fellow bar-mai

w who th

d Rosalind

o went out with that

who i

had better brace themselves up for a great